May 4, 2020 — Tokyo’s Toyosu Market is experiencing a drastic financial fallout as Japan reels from the economic shock of COVID-19.
From March to April, both the volume of seafood Japan’s largest seafood market handled and the prices it received had nosedived. But the crash has been uneven, reflecting a shift by Japanese consumers from eating out to cooking at home. Sales of luxury items like tuna have dropped significantly, while sales of fish more commonly cooked inside the home in Japan, such as salmon and hamachi, have not seen a significant falloff.